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cuba_201805_4

LUYANO - PROJECT NUMBER 3

DAY 3 (May 27)
Casa Sacerdotal is a Catholic Church/Seminary/Bed and Breakfast. It is a very peaceful place to stay if you are in Cuba on a religious visa. It is a retreat from the busy, noisy chaos of the city. Breakfast at Casa Sacerdotal is served at exactly 8AM and it is announced by a bell ring heard throughout the hotel. Our group all arrived at 8AM except Dami. Yamil and Dami took advantage of the free time and were able to go visit with their families. They haven't seen their Cuban family members in 20 years so they had a bit of a reunion and celebration. Dami chose to sleep in. We ate breakfast reviewed our notes and then set out at 9AM with Carlos who was waiting for us with the bus. We first had to find a place where we could buy 3/4 inch pipe fittings. We drove to a section of Havana full of small local stores frequented by the locals. It was early Sunday morning so it was a challenge finding a place that was open and a place that had what we needed. We tried several stores not finding what we needed. We went block by block through the area until we came upon a man in the street in-front of a hardware store. The store did not have what we needed but the man said he knew where we could get it. He boarded the bus and guided Carlos to a street next to a church where he left and we waited. He returned with a bag of pipe fittings: 90 degree fittings, T's, and unions all 3/4 inch and what we needed. We negotiated and he brought us 30 feet of pipe, and 20 of each fitting. All the fittings were threaded so we needed a pipe threader to thread the plastic pipe but he did not have one. We gathered our new found supplies, paid and then the man offered to help us buy cigars. It was a bonus being in this local section of the city and having a person who knew how to get items we needed. We bought 4 boxes of very good Cuban cigars and then set out for our project. This was a pretty typical supply run by Cuban standards and not unlike what we have done in Nepal, Honduras and in Haiti. In locations like this it's not easy finding supplies, nor food or water for that matter. We arrived a Church of the Resurrection at exactly 11:30AM as church was letting out. We gathered our supplies and lugged them up to the 2nd floor where we decided to install the water filter system.
The system was going in an alcove connecting to an existing 3/4inch plastic pipe that drops down through the floor to a public faucet. We had everything planned and we had what we needed except the pipe threader. Emanuel went on a hunt and found one to borrow in the neighborhood. It was old but it served our need. Rick and Carlos went on a run to try and buy one, heading back to the streets trying every store they could find but - no luck. Despite using an old pipe threader, the team did an excellent job assembling and installing the system in record time. In just over 3 hours the system was operational. By 3:00PM the system was finished and the team were all taking drinks of the clean drinking water along with Father Ivan and Emanuel. Emanuel was already an expert construction supervisor, being the leader of the construction of the church which is now being built out and fully developed into a highly admired community center. He is now an expert at installing clean drinking water filter systems. We felt very good knowing we helped install a much needed system and also sharing the knowledge with Emanuel who is now fully prepared to maintain the system and work with the main Cathedral on other systems if needed. We have the 4th system and we will be taking it to the main Episcopal Cathedral tomorrow. Jerry salvaged some of the used PVC valves that were glued to pipe but not used in the system install. We assembled the full system in a duffle bag, collected all the extra parts and pipe and we loaded the bus.
We returned to Casa Sacerdotal, cleaned up, took a short break and then we met downstairs where Carlos was waiting with the bus to take us out for some well deserved R&R.

Carlos dropped us off at Hotel Cohiba where El Paseo intersects with El Malicon. Carlos, our driver, waited for us and then took us down to the waterfront stopping at Hotel Cohiba where we changed some money and enjoyed the view of the harbor from the lobby. We crossed the street and strolled down El Malicon watching classic cars drive by, fishermen using a balloon to help take their line out to deeper water, we also saw cruise ships and sailboats as we sat on the wall and just enjoyed the view. As a rainstorm gathered we walked down a few blocks and took a seat under a canopy at a street-side cafe. After discussing some more options our group split up with some staying at the cafe waiting for the rain to pass while others opted to take a taxi back to the hotel to rest and have an early dinner.
The other part of the group rode with Carlos down to Old Havana and took a brief walking tour around central park and some famous sites in Habana Vieja. We saw the opera house, the bar Floridita made famous by Hemingway, a fleet of classic cars, the Capitol building and famous hotels. We took our time and enjoyed the scenery for about an hour and then returned to the hotel for dinner across the street. We had a relaxing dinner and then turned in knowing we would have a busy day tomorrow working on project number 3.

UPDATED: 2018-05-30 21:15:34